California Gov. Jerry Brown discusses his tax measure, Prop 30, which passed Tuesday, at a news conference at the Capitol building in Sacramento, Calif., Nov. 7, 2012. Under the proposition, income tax rates for those earning more than $250,000 annually will be raised for seven years, and a one-quarter-cent increase in the state sales tax would be put in place for four years. (Jim Wilson/The New York Times)

For one thing, he warned a group of business leaders in San Francisco Thursday, you'd better start meeting with your tax advisers right away. That's because - if you didn't already know - those tax increases on the wealthy passed by state voters this week are retroactive, meaning some people will be coughing up more taxes on income earned this year.

Add to that the possible end of the federal Bush-era tax cuts, and the elimination or cutting back of other tax breaks and loopholes, and the money starts to seriously add up.

The president of the California Business Roundtabledidn't stop there. The state's cap-and-trade program, scheduled to take effect next week, will cost heavy industry as much as $3 billion in its first year of operation, and up to $6 billion a year by 2015 to purchase mandated emission allowances, he says. With the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, he says, health care costs for many businesses are also likely to rise.

Most worrisome, however, is the postelection landscape in Sacramento, where for the first time since 1933 one party has a veto-proof supermajority in both houses of the Legislature, he noted.

"The Legislature will want to backfill the spending cuts made over the last five years. Every tax increase will be called a fee. This is what we're prepared for. These could be grim times," said Lapsley, speaking at a conference at the City Club sponsored by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute.

Lapsley appears not to have taken much comfort from state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, who talked on Wednesday of "bringing in more revenue" for schools, health and human services and the courts, and placing limits on ballot initiatives - particularly, some people believe, the tax-reduction kind.

But, Steinberg added, "I certainly don't intend to suggest to my colleagues that the first thing we do with our new powers is to go out and seek to raise more taxes. We can begin investing more when the budget is stable, and I think the budget now will be stable."

Gov. Jerry Brownsaid Wednesday that any new tax proposals would have to be voted on by the people, and noted that the passage of Proposition 30 is "just going to keep us from getting deeper into this financial black hole, but it won't get us out of the hole. We have to make sure over the next few years that we pay our bills, we invest in the right programs, but we don't go on any spending binges," he said.

To Lapsley, California's Democratic governor "is now the sole backstop for the business community," but he also hopes the private sector reaches out to a "business-friendly Democratic coalition in the Legislature to head off what we fear coming."

As in Washington, Sacramento lawmakers - and there are business-friendly Democrats among them - are making encouraging noises. "We're not looking to figure out new ways to do things that we've said we're not going to do," said Assembly Speaker John Pérez, D-Los Angeles. That includes raising taxes.

More immediately, a business coalition called the AB32 Implementation Group, which includes the California Business Roundtable, the Bay Area Council and the California Chamber of Commerce, has been circulating a petition and running online ads calling on Brown to delay implementation of the cap-and-trade program, pending some alterations. When asked Thursday, Brown's office said "the auction will take place on Nov. 14. We will be monitoring the program very closely and the Air Resources Board will make modifications as appropriate."

"It's a new world," said Lapsley. "and we're playing defense."

-- Presentations made on the U.S., California and Bay Area economies at the annual economic forecast conference are at www.bayareaeconomy.org.